02 June 2006

Diaspora Month at the Head Heeb

The exact size of the Maori diaspora is difficult to determine, but it appears to be growing rapidly. The New Zealand statistical bureau estimates that, by the mid-1980s, some 27,000 Maori were living in Australia, representing "just over 6 percent of the New Zealand Māori descent population at that time." By the time of the 2001 Australian census, this number had grown to 72,956. Given that the ancestry question in the Australian national census relies on self-identification and that respondents may select up to two ancestries, this figure may understate or (more likely) overstate the size of the Maori minority in Australia, but it indicates at minimum that 20 percent of New Zealand-born Australians self-identify as Maori. This, in turn, means that (1) Maori form a greater proportion of the New Zealand-born population in Australia than they do in New Zealand, and (2) between 1986 and 2001, Maori emigrated to Australia at a considerably faster rate than white New Zealanders.